Cookie Decorating

Riley decorated her first batch of cookies. I kept it simple by making little sugar cookies with frosting from a can and sprinkles.  Riley loved it and was very independent with the frosting and sprinkles!

 

New Hair Style For Riley Nicole

 From the most awesome bedhead...

To the cutest little do:

Riley Nicole at 2 Years, 3 Months

It's amazing how a toddler can change so much each month.  There's always new things to report!  Here's a glimpse of Riley Nicole at 2 year, 3 months:

• Riley still says she sees the "monkey." Sometimes he's a nice monkey and sometimes he's scary.  I think I've pinpointed who the "monkey" is.  Anytime she hears a loud noise or an unexpected noise she runs to Daddy or me and says "I scared.  Monkey in there."
• She is able to say that her birthday is "Owgest 15."  This is mostly Hedy's doing.  They review birthdays and months.  I've been reviewing the month and day combination with her since I found out she knew her birthday month.
• On occasion she surprises us by counting to 20.  She's only done this a couple times on her own.  She likes to follow someone else who is counting.  She's started counting by using her fingers.
• She went to the doctor a couple weeks ago for a flu shot.  She weighed 26 pounds even with her diaper and clothes on.
• She's still wearing size 2T pants.  Most of which need to be accompanied by a belt or they fall down.  But, she's now wearing mostly 3T shirts.  She must have a long torso because most of her 2T shirts are belly shirts now.  She's still wearing some of her size 5 shoes, but has size 6 tennis shoes.
• She likes to pick out her own shoes.  Usually she picks her "new shoes" (tennis shoes) because they have purple on them or her "pink shoes."  Her favorite colors are definitely purple and pink.
• She will have a meltdown in the morning if she doesn't get her milk.  Today we thought our milk was spoiled so tried to give her some apple juice until we could stop on the way to Hedy's.  She threw herself on the floor, cried "my milk" over and over, and crawled from the living room to the refrigerator.  Drama Queen!  Luckily the milk wasn't spoiled and she got some before we left the house.
• She is a back seat driver.  She is always saying what direction we need to go and points out when we're close to home, close to Hedy's, or close to Grandma's house.  She likes to say "green means go" when she sees a green light and "red means stop" when she sees a red light.  She might be learning this from her Mommy since I'm a terrible back seat driver.
• She loves routines.  Bedtime routines are huge.  There's a different routine for Daddy than there is for Mommy.  She reads books in "mommy's room" with Mommy and she reads books in the "guess woom" with Daddy.  We haven't messed with them yet because she's a Drama Queen!  
• She LOVES ice packs and needs them all of the time!  She'll get a hang nail and ask for an ice pack. 
• Favorite foods include: apples, red/yellow peppers, chicken noodle soup, peas, chicken nuggets, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches cut into shapes, mac and cheese, any pasta, sweet potato, cheese.  Riley loves cheese and will always ask for it for a snack.  She always says that she wants soup for dinner or lunch.  She almost always reports that she has soup for lunch.
• Favorite books include her Mother Goose book and Elmo books.  She has memorized nearly 40 mother goose rhymes.  You can say 1/2 of a line of one of the rhymes and she will finish it for you.  It amazes me how sharp her memory is.  She definitely has a better memory than her Mommy.  I'm sure I confuse her because I can't remember nursery rhymes for the life of me.  Although the repetition of reading Mother Goose nearly 4 times a week is helping!

First Trimester Recap

Yesterday I finally hit 12 weeks.  Here's a few of my thoughts on the past 3 months and comparisons to my first pregnancy:

• I'm not the pregnancy women who gets "the glow."  Unfortunately, I'm the prego who gets terrible acne.  Luckily they're mostly around my hairline, but still!
• This time seems to be going much faster than before.  Having a 2 year old seems to make a difference.
• I'm thankful for a husband who made dinner for about 4 weeks straight because I didn't have the energy or stomach for it.
• I seemed to feel worse this time around, but it didn't last as long.  I started feeling much better around 11 weeks.
• I haven't gained any weight, but I started off 5 pounds heavier than with Riley. This time around I just feel fat. 
• I am determined to not gain 55 pounds this time around! 
• We heard the heart beat again yesterday.  It was 174.  Riley's was always around 145.  Wives tales say that means we're going to have another girl.  But the doctor reassured Brett that we still have a 50/50 chance for a boy.

We have confirmed that we are 100% going to be taking the progesterone shots to try to avoid pre-term labor.  The statistics say that women who go into pre-term labor spontaneously have a 30% chance of having another pre-term labor.  With the progesterone shots it will reduce the changes to under 10%.  So, around 17-18 weeks I'll begin my weekly Dr visit for the shot.  I'll continue to get the shot until I'm 34 weeks.  Truthfully, I hope that I don't go into labor 5 weeks early again, but dear God am I terrified to have normal sized baby!  Yikes!  I know the pain of delivering a baby under 5 pounds and try not to even imagine a larger baby.  Oh well.  Healthy baby.  That's what I'm channeling!

Lastly:

Here's my Super Riley.  Look at that hair.  Any suggestions on what to do with it.  Right now it's crazy and growing super fast!

Riley On Being A Big Sister

I video taped Riley last night as I asked her a few questions about being a big sister and bringing a baby into the Murphy family.  I still haven't figured out how to upload video from my video camera so I don't have it to post.  Here's a jist of how it went down:

Mommy: Riley, what's in Mommy's tummy?

Riley: A baby!

Mommy: Do you want it to be a baby girl, or baby boy?

Riley: Baby Sister

Daddy: What if it's a boy?

Riley: No.  Baby Sister!

Mommy:  Are you going to help with the baby?

Riley:  Yeah!

Mommy:  What are you going to help with?

Riley:  {Long pause}

Mommy:  Are you going to help feed her?

Riley: Yeah!

Mommy:  Are you going to feed her a bottle?

Riley:  No. Soup! {Riley does a somersault off of the chair and the interview is officially over}

Riley will be a great big sister.  She loves playing with her dollies - making them take naps, feeding them, and putting diapers on them.  Today, she took a stuffed lamb to Hedy's house.  She took it right over to baby Cooper (he's 9 months old) and let him play with it.  Then preceded to kiss him on the lips and unzip his jammies.  Nice.  We're working on the difference between babies and dollies, and how we don't just get babies naked like dollies.  She definitely has the baby talk down and loves that she can make babies happy.  We'll be working on being gentle with babies over the next 6 months as she hasn't quite figured that one out yet!

I'm officially 12 weeks today.  We have our 2nd OB appointment this afternoon.  From what I remember not much is done at this appointment.  They will be redrawing all my labs. I didn't get a clear answer from the nurse, but believe that they lost or contaminated my blood work from my last appointment.  We'll also be discussing the option of progesterone shots this time around. Since Riley spontaneously came 5 weeks early the doctor that I saw last suggested that it might be a good option.  There is a chance that this baby could come sooner than the first.  Who knows.  Thankfully, I've turned a corner and now can eat pretty much anything.  Life is getting back to normal as I'm not just laying on the couch all evening. It was pretty bad for awhile, but I feel like a new person now!

Trick Or Treating 2010

We took our little Minnie Mouse to Grandma and Grandpa Murphy's to begin the night around 6pm.  Riley knocked on Grandma's door, but refused to say here "trick or treat" line.  After that we decided that handing out candy would be just as fun for Riley.  And FUN was it!  At the last minute I decided to throw in some play doh that I had bought earlier in the day.  I was surprised that all of the play doh went before any of the candy.  I think I'll be buying play doh again next year! After all of the Trick or Treaters had gone home for the night we went to Grandma and Grandpa Burch's house for a little more fun with Riley's cousins.

Here's what we'll remember from the night:

• Riley running to the door yelling "more trick or treats" every time another kid came up to the door.
• Riley opening the door and running out to see the "trick or treats" and saying "Hi, guys" to every one of them.
• Riley telling all of them "see ya alligators" after they were all leaving.
• Riley reciting "trick or treat, smell my feet..."
• Riley telling one little boy that he couldn't take her last play doh.  It went something like this: Boy grabs the play doh.  Riley says "no guys. no take that."  Daddy telling Riley and the little boy that yes, he can have it. Riley then saying "no Daddy" as the boy takes the play doh and walks away.
• Over half of the kids didn't have jokes!  Brett couldn't understand this.
• Riley trying all of the candy and spitting every piece out.  Nice.  No more chocolate for her!

Pumpkin Carving 2010

We set out to carve pumkins last week. We started with this.

 After 20 minutes we ended up with this:

 While Daddy was doing this:

The finished product: